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A film's boon to pinot noir

BUELLTON, California — As the manager of Sanford Winery's rustic tasting room in the Santa Rita Hills just west of this crossroads town, Chris Burroughs usually greets visitors and pours wine. But since the film "Sideways" opened last autumn, he has added a few duties: posing for photos with tourists, autographing their wine bottles and sharing his film-set memories.

Burroughs's ticket to fame was just a few seconds on screen in "Sideways," pouring wine for the actors Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, who play Miles and Jack, two old college friends off on a week of wine-tasting and carousing in Santa Barbara County. The film corralled rave reviews and five Oscar nominations, as well as an audience that seems entranced by the wines that Miles and Jack consumed and the places they went, if not by their excesses.

For Santa Barbara County, removed by hundreds of miles and thousands of exalting words from far more celebrated wine regions like the Napa Valley, the "Sideways" effect has been profound. Unlike Napa, where multimillion-dollar wineries and top restaurants have helped generate a vast tourism industry, Santa Barbara County has been an overlooked and often ignored part of the California wine business.

Now it is the wine region of the moment, with the film functioning as a feature-length product placement vehicle.

Tourism has boomed, particularly in the Santa Ynez Valley, where most of the action takes place, about 40 miles, or about 64 kilometers, north of Santa Barbara.

The county has distributed almost 40,000 copies of a "Sideways" map, detailing the wineries, restaurants, motels and other sites that appear in the film. It has printed a pamphlet, "The 'Sideways' Guide to Wine and Life," which is on sale countywide.

Hotels are promoting "Sideways" packages and offering "Sideways" limousine tours of the wine country. Restaurants are doing uncharacteristically big business in the off season. Pinot noir, the wine exalted so poetically in the movie, has enjoyed a burst of sales nationwide while merlot, so memorably derided by Miles, is faltering, at least among those who have seen the movie. The wines mentioned in the film, along with bit players like Burroughs, are suddenly in demand.

"This culture is so geared to celebrity, but it's funny what passes for celebrity," said Burroughs, who has made a round of appearances on television, in magazines and on the Internet. "I have to admit it's enjoyable."

In the film Jack and Miles's considerable emotional turmoil and suffering contrast with the backdrop of lush, inviting vineyards, gorgeous green hills and pastel skies. The camera lovingly caresses local wine labels like Fiddlehead, Sea Smoke, Whitcraft and Hartley Ostini.

The bottles are poured by waitresses and tasting room assistants who can make a sauvignon blanc sound like the Song of Solomon. At least as much as it forces audiences to contemplate the foibles of the main characters, "Sideways" succeeds in making wine and winery hopping in Santa Barbara seem like great fun instead of an exercise in pretentiousness.

"I've sold more pinot noir in the last year than ever, and all since November, when the movie came out," said Jim Clendenen, the owner and winemaker at Au Bon Climat.

Even tasting rooms that do not appear in "Sideways" have had a sharp increase in business. Babcock Winery, one of the older wineries in the Santa Rita Hills, usually draws about 100 visitors a day in the summer and maybe 10 a day in the slow winter season, said Bob Heubel, who was pouring wines in the tasting room.

"This year we're getting 100 people a day in February," he said. "They all want to talk 'Sideways,' and they all want pinot noir."

In Napa and Sonoma counties, both more established wine regions, the response seems to be positive, though perhaps a little measured.

"Everybody believes that a rising tide in this industry lifts all boats," said Larry Martin, president of Food and Wine Trails in Santa Rosa, California, which arranges tours, particularly in Napa and Sonoma.

"We would love to get in on the success bandwagon that 'Sideways' has opened for us."

Riding on that success is the Hitching Post II, an unpolished steakhouse in Buellton where, in the movie, the main characters meet a waitress named Maya and drink copious amounts of Hartley Ostini Highliner pinot noir, whose market was mostly local to that point. "We have 20 or 30 percent more business in the restaurant, and the sales of Highliner are more than 400 percent up," said Frank Ostini, an owner of the Hitching Post and a partner in Hartley Ostini wines.

"Everybody is coming here, and when they get here, they want Highliner."

Not every local wine featured in the movie is an object of veneration. Miles and Maya share a bottle of syrah from Andrew Murray Vineyards. "Too much alcohol," Maya says. "Overwhelms the fruit."

It's an assessment that the winery's namesake and founder himself does not completely dismiss. Even so, he said, the scene has done far more good than harm.

Murray said he got on well with the film crew and allowed his vineyard name to be used because he felt that the scene, where Miles and Maya probe into each other's wine backgrounds, was important. "It was a beautiful moment, a turning point, when Miles realizes that here's this person, Maya, who has a deep passion for wine," Murray said.

Nonetheless he was shocked at the movie's impact. "I literally thought 300 people would see this movie," he said.

Only the slightest rumblings of discontent have emerged in Santa Barbara County since "Sideways" was released. A few people have complained that the movie encourages vulgarity and alcoholism. Others have expressed fear that an increase in tourism might set Santa Barbara toward becoming a new Napa.

For the most part, though, people seem proud of the role their area played in the movie. At least nobody's started ordering merlot again.